Comintern

The Comintern, or Communist International, was an international Communist organization founded by and controlled by the Soviet Union. It was first established in 1919, as a way for the Soviet Union to "export revolution abroad" in its policy of overthrow legitimate regimes; to aid revolutionary Communist parties in other countries and to use foreign Communist parties for espionage and subversion (political) to further Communist goals.

With his seizure of power in Russia, Soviet General Secretary V.I. Lenin turned immediately to his real goal, world revolution. He invited members of all the old socialist parties to join the Comintern. Many did, and new parties were formed—the Communist Party of France (CPF), the Communist Party of China (CCP), the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA), and so on, all under the control of the mother party in Moscow (CPSU).

Goals

The openly proclaimed aim of the Comintern was the overthrow of all “capitalist” governments and the establishment of a universal state under Communist dominion. The founding documents of the Comintern explicitly declared that the member parties and movements were to use whatever means, legal or illegal, peaceful or violent, might be appropriate to their situations at any given time.

This was the stark specter facing the non-Communist nations in the decades before World War II: a power covering one-sixth of the earth’s surface had at its command a global movement that was fighting to wrest control of organized labor everywhere, fomenting revolutions in the colonial regions, vying for the allegiance of the western intelligentsia, and planting spies wherever it could—all with the goal of bringing about Bolshevism to the all of the world’s peoples.

The Comintern Electronic Archives cites the organization as "The General staff of the world revolution".

When the Soviet Union itself was invaded in on 22 June 1941, the Comintern switched its position to one of active support for the Allies. A document dated 11 July 1941 making a strategic assessment for the United States War Department entitled Military Intelligence Estimates Prepared by G-2 states “The Comintern through the Soviet Regime is striving for a world revolution in the interests of Communism.

The Comintern was publicly disbanded in 1943, however its underground apparatus remained active throughout World War II and into the Cold War era.

Chinese Communist party

Main article Chinese Communist party

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded as an eastern branch of Soviet Communism, carrying out the imperialism of the Russian Red Army. The CCP copied the secret and underground means by which an external illegal organization survived, adopting extreme surveillance and control measures. The CCP constitution passed by the First Congress of the CCP was formulated by the Comintern.

In 1935, Georgi Dimitrov was General Secretary of the Comintern. At the 15th Anniversary of tbe Communist Party of China he laid down tbe Communist line to the followers:

"...as a real Bolshevik Party, the Communist Party of China realizes that however great tbe successes it has achieved, they are only the first serious steps on the road to the liberation of tbe Chinese people...The Party... is faced with the task of carrying on a systematic struggle to establish a united national front with the Kuomintang...It is necessary that energetic measures be taken to exert pressure on public opinion and the governments, first and foremost in England, France, and the U.S.A."

United States

Main article Communist Party of the United States

See also

• Chinese People's Liberation Army of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (from 1923)
• International Brigades
• Albanian National Liberation Army
• Communist Party of Yugoslavia
• Greek National Liberation Front
• Malayan Communist Party
• Mongolian People's Republic
• Polish People's Army (Armia Ludowa) (from 1943)
• Popular Front
• Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
• Soviet spies in America (1921-1948)
• Viet Minh